Rams Indian and Sri Lankan Food ~ Homebush West

In Sri Lanka we found no shortage of little restaurants (usually called hotels) where locals dined super cheap. Though for some reason in Sydney the Sri Lankan community favours takeaway joints over restaurants. We don't ask why, we just eat. The takeaway place we hear about most is Rams in Flemington.




Rams is a simple takeaway in a nondescript arcade in the buzzy little suburb of Homebush West (Flemington on the train line). A bunch of our readers recommended Rams so we are super excited to finally make it here. So are lots of other folks, the queue stretches to the door.



There's a load of classic Sri Lankan street food ready to go. There's lots more goodies in the freezer too, mostly frozen versions of short eats (fried snacks foods). In the large fridge are containers of ready made curry, usually fish, goat or crab. Add some hoppers or roti and have an instant Sri Lankan feast. You can also grab bottles of EGB and Golden Barley to wash it down.



Rams menu - main meals for $7, amazing. No wonder there's a queue.



On our first visit we ask for our favourite, lumprice or lampraise, but it's finished for today. Instead we get a lamb (mutton) and a chicken biryani ($7 each). They come with a boiled egg and a little container of yoghurt with a hint of green chili mixed in. The rice is light yet spicy with long separated grains, superb. In fact it's better that the biryani we had in Sri Lanka (we simply picked the wrong places - we should have gone to the awesome looking biryani joint shown in Peter Kuravita's TV foodie tour show, My Sri Lanka.)



Devilled cashews are lightly spiced and perfect with a beer. We missed the crisp fried curry leaves they are mixed with in Sri Lanka, we guess they aren't used as much here. We also grab some sweeties and lentil snacks for we have visions of munchies ahead.



On our next visit we we got our wish. Lamprise, lump rice, lumpraise - whatever you prefer to call it - $7 - we try both chicken and lamb flavours. The sambals on the side really make this dish, an eggplant dish and an onion mix. The fried ball in the centre was a small croquette. This dish often runs out so we phoned ahead to reserve these. The lovely ladies encourage you to do so. Order more than one, they take credit card so buy up!



More lovely sweeties - with the bitter\sweet sesame flavour of halva. The ones we tried in Sri Lanka were a lot more bitter, we dig these more mellow ones.



Rams is at Shop 17C, 16-20 Henley Rd Flemington/Homebush West, down a wee arcade that leads into a carpark. Although it does say eat-in there are no tables or chairs, it's purely takeaway. If you prefer to dine-in try Mithu's around the corner, great food and lovely folks. For more great Sri Lankan where Sri Lankans eat visit the many joints in Pendle Hill, there's also Sri Lankan Food Bar one suburb away in Homebush.



The super lovely ladies encouraged us to phone ahead with orders as some things do run out - phone 02 9763 1456. They are really friendly and there is no language hassles for English speakers.


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If you catch a train to Flemington make sure you lend a hand to anybody struggling up/down platform stairs with a heavy trolley load of fruit'n'veg from Paddies Markets. Our heart goes out to whoever suffered a busted wheel to their custom shopping trolley, that must have really bummed out their day.